14 Wednesday Apr 2021
Tags
British butterflies, Green-veined white, Lavernock Nature Reserve, Orange-tip butterfly, Orange-tip male, spring butterflies
With the help of a little warm sunshine, Lavernock Nature Reserve came up trumps for me yesterday, as I found my first Orange-tip and Green-veined white butterflies for 2021, two of each. So beautiful, so lucky!
10 Saturday Apr 2021
Butterfly species seven and eight for the year for me are the gorgeous Peacock (I saw five on one of the few days we actually had some warm sunshine) and that lover of the woodland edge, the Speckled wood (two now seen – more will surely follow, when the sun returns).
31 Wednesday Mar 2021
Posted in insects
Tags
British butterflies, butterfly, butterflying, Large white butterfly, Small tortoiseshell, Small white butterfly
‘Stay near me – do not take thy flight!
A little longer stay in sight!’
These are the opening lines of William Wordsworth’s 1802 poem ‘To a Butterfly’, lines I can easily identify with, thoughts I also utter often – though not in Wordsworth’s exact words, of course.
Fortunately, the butterflies occasionally, and unknowingly, heed my pleas and stay long enough for me to take photographs, like these recent new sightings for 2021, the beautiful Large and Small whites, and Small tortoiseshell.
17 Wednesday Mar 2021
Though yesterday’s weren’t my first butterfly sightings of the year (I’ve seen two different species fly rapidly past in recent weeks but haven’t managed photos), they were simply splendid. A walk around Cardiff’s Grangemoor Park produced five (!) Brimstones and, though most were patrolling their chosen territories at speed, I waited patiently for one to stop for a rest and managed to get close enough to get some good images. I can’t tell you how truly wonderful it feels to be sharing my air space with butterflies again. They are such magical creatures!
28 Monday Dec 2020
Posted in insects
I’ve often said that the Small copper is my favourite butterfly, and that’s still true, but the butterfly in my spotlight for 2020 is the Small tortoiseshell. And the good news is that this year I’ve seen more Small tortoiseshells, both the butterflies and their larvae, than in previous years. I hope that means they’re enjoying some good luck, and their numbers are bouncing back everywhere, not just in my locality. I’ve blogged about these beautiful butterflies a few times now: the most recent post was The devil’s butterfly?, in April 2020.
24 Saturday Oct 2020
Meadow brown butterflies have a long season, on the wing from early June to the end of October, and those dates are exactly what I’ve observed in my area this year and last.
In 2019, I spotted my first Meadow brown on 5 June and the last was a single butterfly seen on 7 October.
This year, I saw my first Meadow Brown at Cosmeston Lakes Country Park on 1 June.
And, as September was drawing to a close, I kept a special eye out for these lovely butterflies, each time taking a photograph and asking myself, ‘Will this be the last Meadow brown of the year?’
I knew time was fast slipping away for them and, on 5 October, again at Cosmeston, it really was the last time I would see a Meadow brown in 2020. That butterfly is the one shown below … and I’m already looking forward to seeing them again next June.
08 Thursday Oct 2020
After the strong winds and heavy rain of recent days the last thing I expected to see at Cosmeston yesterday was this Clouded yellow butterfly (Colias croceus). I was initially surprised at what good condition it was in but, in his Life Cycles of British & Irish Butterflies, Peter Eeles writes that ‘In good years, this species can produce up to three broods in the south of England, with the third brood emerging in late September and October.’ Presumably, this is also true for south Wales and, as several other butterflies have had additional broods this year, I wonder if this saffron beauty is one of a newly emerged third brood.
03 Saturday Oct 2020
Posted in nature
I’ve been saving this photo, taken quite recently, on 22 September, for just such a day as this. We are currently under the thumb of Storm Alex, the Met Office having issued a yellow warning for heavy rain and wind gusts over 20mph until midday tomorrow. So, to me, this is the perfect day to post this gorgeous Peacock butterfly, a heartening splash of bold cheery colour.
30 Wednesday Sep 2020
Tags
Aricia agestis, British butterflies, Brown argus, butterfly, butterflying, Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, Lavernock Nature Reserve, second brood Brown argus
This year I saw my first Brown argus butterfly (Aricia agestis) on 11 July and thought I’d seen my last on 26 August, a short but very sweet season of sightings. Then, to my astonishment and absolute delight, I discovered two more on the same day, 16 September, one at Lavernock Nature Reserve and the other at Cosmeston Lakes Country Park.
These had to be the product of the first brood of butterflies breeding and so were a second brood, not something I’d seen before with this butterfly. As the local populations of Dingy skippers have also produced a second brood and the Small coppers a third brood this year and nothing has changed in their environments, I can only assume this has been caused by the warmer climate.
I haven’t managed to find the Lavernock Brown argus again but the Cosmeston butterfly was still in the same spot last week. A late summer-early Autumn treat!
26 Saturday Sep 2020
Posted in insects
I love the peculiar habit Small coppers have of walking head first down the stems of grasses.
